Baking More than Gingerbread

I've seriously wanted to make this post since...like...May.  Here we are, 4 weeks away from my due date, and I'm just now getting around to making the "baby announcement" in gingerbread.

I've been busy making cakes!

At this point, I made the carriage to bring in to school.  Every year, my third graders get excited that I'm the "gingerbread teacher" who brings in treats around Halloween and Christmas.  I'll be on maternity leave for both of those holidays, so I thought I'd do this instead!

If you haven't guessed, we're having a girl.

I got the idea from:

I made some modifications, since I'm making it for 8-9 year-olds.  I did not make the marzipan baby, and instead, added more icing and candy decorations.  I'm also going to pour more candy inside the carriage for my kids to devour.  

I respect that, to my students, the fun is all the sugar, not the tasty gingerbread pieces underneath.

I will say, however, that I had extra gingerbread pieces (extra supports etc. I baked off) and they taste AMAZING.  Especially good dipped in coffee!  (or decaf.  whatever)

As aforementioned, (oooh fancy word!) I gladly spent my summer fulfilling cake and cupcake orders.  An unexpected side-effect to this was that I got rusty making gingerbread!  I'm sure it didn't help that I did not have my other two Gingerbuilders with me to help...or the traditional wine to encourage creative thinking...but I definitely hit a few hiccups making this carriage, and I thought I'd share them with you, so you could learn from my mistakes.

1.  When rolling cutting and baking your pieces, remember

roll out your pieces and bake them on parchment paper!  I forgot this the first time I rolled the dough, warped pieces pulling them from the counter with a spatula, and had to try again.  Duh!

2.  What To Do if you Break a Piece

I know I know.  Megan wasn't there.  But it still happened.  Twice actually.  On 2 different pieces.  Like I said, I was out of practice!

Don't panic.  Just remember, most mistakes can be covered or fixed with icing.  :-)

I iced my pieces back together and used a support just to make sure it would hold.

All that mess is on the inside.  No way you can tell when I put it all together.

3.  Storing Royal Icing

I found this lovely site FULL of great info on royal icing.  Check it out: Sweetopia

This project took me several days to complete.  I did it alone, and pieces needed to dry before I could continue the project.  For these reasons, I stored my royal icing in the fridge in piping bags.  

The icing loosened/separated after 1-2 days.  I didn't want to re whip it because it was already in the bags.  This made for fun challenged.  I had to decorate everything flat so the icing wouldn't run everywhere.

  

Then let it dry, and flip the carriage to work on another part.

In the end, I made a new batch and whipped it fresh.  Being lazy doesn't pay off.  I was worried about matching color, but I think I did okay.

I went back over some of the sloppier parts with the newer icing.  

Meh.  This wasn't a competition piece.  It's for third-graders!  Who are going to love it.

The first of many Labors of Love for our Little Girl.

Rat Tail...The Nemesis

All the great ones have a nemesis... Superman, Batman, Liz Lemon... And US!
Before our very first competition, we were understandably nervous. We weren't sure what caliber of competitor we were up against. Upon arriving and dropping our MASTERPIECE off, we were able to scope out the competition a bit more and were instantly relieved. It's not that the other houses were bad... they were adorable, they were charming, they were cute. But not a'one of them had the detail, the intricacies, the magic that ours had. We assumed we were a "shoe in"... we assumed wrong.

While we placed 2nd in our very first competition, the piece that won 1st place was, how shall I say... underwhelming? The theme of the competition was "Winter Wonderland".  *WE* created a gorgeous, sparkling, sugary palace, compete with a covered bridge and a horse-drawn carriage. We named it "The Lustre of Mid-day on Objects Below". Rat Tail's submission was called "Alice in Winter Wonderland", a name that the judges found terribly clever. There were some impressive elements, a molded caterpillar with a hooka pipe on a mushroom, for example. But overall, it was sloppy, it was poorly executed... it was just ok.

The creator of said house was a young man who's name we never actually caught, but his one distinguishing characteristic was a 14"long rat tail. Yes. A rat tail. We were both thrilled at placing but baffled as to WHY we came in behind this less than spectacular submission.

Flash forward, one year. We are ready to submit our second piece to the same competition, certain that this year we NAILED IT. We had detail, we had whimsy, we had realism, we had molded marzipan for cryin' out loud!!!

We dropped off our piece and went to grab some breakfast and who do we see at the charming breakfast cafe we stopped in???? RAT TAIL!! Our old nemesis had RETURNED!
Thankfully, we received 1st place that year... But it didn't remove the sting of having come in behind something that looked like a terrible 6th grade diorama.

Next week takes us back to our usual competition, which of course, we are certain we're going to win. But in the back of all of our minds... we all wonder, will Rat Tail return to give us a run for our money???

My Journey With Gingerbread

My Journey With Gingerbread

I've always had different hobbies. From dollhouses to archeology, I've just always had interests that were a little different from most people I know. I was incredibly lucky that my parents always encouraged these unique hobbies though. In the 7th grade, they bought me a beautiful doll house kit (the doll house still proudly sits in my dining room to this day). They didn't talk me out of studying archaeology in college. And when I got the crazy idea one Christmas that I wanted to build a gingerbread house, rather than saying "maybe some other time" the bought me a book, The Encyclopedia of Gingerbread, and my dad even helped me create my very first template.

So a few years ago when my friend Stephanie mentioned that she wanted to learn how to make a gingerbread house I very enthusiastically agreed to help her learn! I remember being really impressed with the design she picked for her first house. There were lots of little accents and special touches she had wanted to add. It was so much fun having one of my best friends creating this delicious, little masterpiece with me! Even better was the next day when our friend Megan wanted to join in on the fun so we just went ahead and made another house. 

We're all incredibly humble, so after congratulating ourselves on our talent and creativity, we decided we couldn't wait another year to collaborate to build another house. So we made The February House which celebrated many of the forgotten, non-Christmasy winter holidays. There were a few more creations before we decided, after only a year of gingerbreading together, to submit a house to an ACTUAL gingerbread competition. We came in 2nd place at our very first competition with our beautiful "Luster of Midday on Objects Below". I was very pregnant, and very tired for the creation of "Luster", but Megan and Stephanie had learned so much, they really took the reigns for that project. I wasn't the teacher any longer... we were teammates. 

The truly incredible thing about our trio...each of us has our own strengths and weaknesses. We each have a unique perspective. Megan has such an eye for detail and a steady hand that can bring that detail to life. Stephanie had this innate ability to visualize an entire project from start to finish. I'd like to think that I'm "the idea person" but I can't claim that exclusively... so let's just say I'm the comic relief ;-)

The three of us together have managed to work together remarkably well and still have so much fun together. I hope you all enjoy going on this journey with us.

First is the Worst, Second is the Best

and second place is what our 2011 castle received at our local gingerbread competition.  The theme for the year was "Winter Wonderland".  We went with the wonder theme and created a castle.  Lots of silver, lots of shiny, and titled the piece "The Luster of Midday on Objects Below."

We were beat out by an "Alice in Winter Wonderland" clever creation.  It was sloppy, but had good sugar work.  (Erin can talk more about our competitor later.) :-)

Keep in mind how clever the judges thought the play on the theme was.  This will come in VERY handy when we reveal our 2013 entry...

This year was the first year we covered our gingerbread in anything.  We covered it in icing, then dusted it with pulverized blue sprinkles and sugar.

We also lined everything with icing stars.  Pretty pretty.  Stylized and Whimsical are our two favorite words.







This was a rainy and muggy year.  We had to wait a LONG time for the icing to dry.  We also melted (I think jolly ranchers) for the windows.  This was different.  By the time of the competition, they had melted off.  Note to self: stick to clear peppermint candy or butterscotch. 

This was also the first time we really used fondant.  Erin hates the taste, so we (Megan) made a yummy marshmallow fondant, which we used to cover round rice krispy treat towers.  (We hadn't quite mastered round baking gingerbread yet.)

Turrets are clearly ice cream cones sprayed with Chef Duff's edible silver spray.

As the icing queen (NOT ice queen) I added little candles.




We melted jolly ranchers again and some clear peppermint (sugar free, oddly enough) candy in aluminum foil to make our lake.  Over that, we built our sweet covered bridge.  This is the same bridge from our Greedo house, and we just loved it so much!  I would expect to see it appear again and again in our pieces.

The roof snowflakes are a German candy.  Their texture is something like Jesus wafers in church.  Always keep your eyes open for new and creative treats!


The tree is rice krispy treats covered in that pulverized sugar and silver spray.  I really like the look of it.

 

We also made a different tree, just so show how creative we could be. :-)

We decided to make the horses 2-D and curved warm gingerbread straight from the oven to form the carriage.

Megan's talent molded us an adorable snowman from Marzipan.  He, too, started to melt from humidity by the time of the competition, but we held it together.

Placing second in our first competition is definitely something we're proud of.  I can't wait to try a more detailed castle plan!
I love our Gingerbuilder Team!

A Month of Holidays Crammed into one House

It may not be cohesive in appearance, but it is thematic and educational!

Our February House of 2010 gave us the opportunity to work again as a team, refine our strengths, try out new techniques, and drink more wine.  (of course)

Melting chocolate around marzipan and using a toothpick to make grooves gave us this awesome realistic looking tree stump.

Megan's molding handiwork and more chocolate and marzipan (yum!) gave us an adorable groundhog to sit near the stump to represent Groundhog's Day!

We made an outhouse, really, because I think we just wanted to use pretzels to build something.

More importantly, and to the February House theme, we made a Valentine's Day Tree (chocolate wrapped around a pretzel) and house, an MLK Bvld street sign, and a marzipan bust of the presidents.  I'm really quite proud of that bust (and I like saying bust).  Unfortunately, it's mostly covered by the roof of the house.  Take my word on how cool it looked.

We figured a little dusting of coconut snow was absolutely appropriate for February.  We may have used more, but Megan hates coconut.  :-)

As of 2013, we use a lot of brown food coloring for writing and shading.  Looking back, I like our use of chocolate.  It may be time to revive that method.

When you look at the background of our house photo, do you notice a familiar item?  It's our customary background decor.

Cheers!

Stephanie's Perspective: How it all Began

It starts as a hobby, and grows to a passion.  Do you ruin it by making it a business?  Or do you dedicate your days to what you love?  Depends on how you look at it.

It certainly helps to work with your friends. :-)

2010.  It all started for me when...

I saw a friend's photos from a cake decorating class on Facebook.  "Hmm, that looks like fun," I mused, and moved on with my life.

Weeks later, she built a gingerbread bowling alley for the local town's gingerbread house holiday contest.  (I didn't even know this contest existed.)  I saw the bowling alley and thought, "How cool!  I'd love to build something as awesome as that."

Must have also said as much to Erin, who told me she'd built gingerbread houses before and would happily show me how.

Woot!


After about an hour of shopping on Amazon, I finally settled on Making Great Gingerbread Houses by Aaron Morgan and Paige Gilchrist, and my new hobby was born.


I studied photos, read the book cover to cover several times, and tried out the recipe and house pattern. 




Mid December, I brought my gingerbread pieces to Erin's house, who was impress with my choice of pattern.  My very first gingerbread would not just be 4 walls and a roof, but a porch too.  I'd like to go back and build the house again, actually.  See how we could change it up now that we've grown in our craft.

With a Kitchen Aid Mixer and some soup cans to hold everything up while it dried, our first gingerbread house was created.

 Erin told me it was fun to mold with Marzipan.  She was right!  The snowman and pig were fun trials.



The tree is "stylized."  One of our favorite words!

The "Christmas lights" are chocolate covered sunflower seeds that I found at TJ Maxx.


As per the books instructions, I also melted some (sugar free actually) candy to make frosted windows.

 I made the wreath.  I was just discovering how much I liked to play with icing.

Erin made the cute marzipan pig.

 
 Pretty sure this house took us about 4 hours and 2 bottles of wine.  (Yes, we operate on wine time.)




But wait, there's 3 Gingerbuilders, you notice...

How keen of you.

Megan saw our pictures on Facebook (clearly the catalyst of our creation) and also wanted to make a house.  I had left over dough, so I made another pattern and us three girls met the very next day.  The master Erin, the apprentices Stephanie and Megan.

I reviewed what I had learned by teaching Megan.  Erin was so proud of her gingerbread students.  :-)

We took many more photos of our process.  And stopped to admire our work. :-)

 We found that a wine bottle is a perfect helper when making ice cream cone trees!  (Note the first house in the background...and the wine glass...)

 Our Greedo house (a happy accident) took us the whole day, with a lunch break of course.  We played with different snack foods and decided what we could use.

 Megan puts the finishing bows on my wreath.  I took to the icing, and she took to the details!

 We tried our first icing river!  and a sweet covered bridge that we wanted to start using in all of our pieces!  (Yes, of course there would be more!)  We discovered that the three of us made an excellent and creative team!

 By now, we were pretty sure that we were all awesome.

 We finished off the landscape.  Erin taught us how to make snow drifts.

and Gingerbuilders was born.